WOMAN   AND   WAR 


AND  WAR 

^ 

FROM 
"WOMAN  AND  LABOR" 


BY 


OLIVE    SCHREINER 

n 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK    A.    STOKES    COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  IQII,  BY 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


November,  1914 


FOREWORD 

No  excuse  is  needed  for  reprinting 
at  this  time  from  Olive  Schreiner's 
classic,  "WOMAN  AND  LABOR," 

her  treatment  of  "Woman  and  War." 
There  is  no  other  exposition  of  wom- 
en's natural  hatred  of  war  so  searching, 
so  true  and  so  moving  as  this.  Her  in- 
spired words  on  the  subject,  beyond 
their  importance  as  a  deeply  significant 
statement  of  the  attitude  of  women 
toward  bloodshed  and  killing,  to  be 
read  and  taken  to  heart  in  its  bearing  on 
the  greatest  war  in  history,  are  vital  as  a 
prophecy  of  how  war  in  the  future  will 
pass  away. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  whole 


FOREWORD 


fate  of  the  book,  "WOMAN  AND 
LABOR,"  is  connected  with  war.  In 
the  introduction  the  author  tells  of  the 
irreparable  destruction  of  the  nearly 
completed  manuscript  of  which  the 
book  as  published  is  but  a  reminiscent 
fragment.  She  had  finally  finished,  she 
tells  us,  the  work  on  women  which  had 
occupied  a  large  part  of  her  life  since 
her  early  youth.  There  only  remained 
revision  and  the  writing  of  a  preface 
before  publication.  She  continues  the 
story  thus: 

"In  1899  I  was  living  in  Johannes- 
burg, when,  owing  to  ill-health,  I  was 
ordered  suddenly  to  spend  some  time  at 
a  lower  level.  At  the  end  of  two 
months  the  Boer  War  broke  out.  Two 
days  after  war  was  proclaimed  I  ar- 
rived at  De  Aar  on  my  way  back  to  the 
Transvaal ;  but  martial  law  had  already 
[6] 


FOREWORD 


been  proclaimed  there,  and  the  military 
authorities  refused  to  allow  me  to  re- 
turn to  my  home  in  the  Transvaal  and 
sent  me  down  to  the  Colony;  nor  was 
I  allowed  to  send  any  communication 
through,  to  any  person  who  might  have 
extended  some  care  over  my  possessions. 
Some  eight  months  after,  when  the  Bri- 
tish troops  had  taken  and  entered  Jo- 
hannesburg, a  friend,  who,  being  on  the 
British  side,  had  been  allowed  to  go  up, 
wrote  me  that  he  had  visited  my  house 
and  found  it  looted  and  that  all  that  was 
of  value  had  been  taken  or  destroyed; 
my  desk  had   been   forced  open   and 
broken  up,  and  its  contents  set  on  fire  in 
the  center  of  the  room,  so  that  the  roof 
was  blackened  over  the  pile  of  burnt 
papers.    He  added  that  there  was  little 
in  the  remnants  of  paper  of  which  I 
could  make  any  use,  but  that  he  had 
[7] 


FOREWORD 


gathered  and  stored  the  fragments  till 
such  time  as  I  might  be  allowed  to  come 
and  see  them.  I  thus  knew  my  book 
had  been  destroyed. 

"Some  months  later  in  the  war  when 
confined  in  a  little  up-country  hamlet 
many  hundreds  of  miles  from  the  coast 
and  from  Johannesburg;  with  the  brunt 
of  the  war  at  that  time  breaking  round 
us,  de  Wet  was  said  to  have  crossed  the 
Orange  River  and  to  have  been  within 
a  few  miles  of  us,  and  the  British  col- 
umns moved  hither  and  thither.  I  was 
living  in  a  little  house  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  village,  in  a  single  room,  with  a 
stretcher  and  two  packing-cases  as  fur- 
niture, and  with  only  my  little  dog  for 
company.  Thirty-six  armed  African 
natives  were  set  to  guard  night  and  day 
at  the  doors  and  windows  of  the  house; 
[8] 


FOREWORD 


and  I  was  only  allowed  to  go  out  during 
certain  hours  in  the  middle  of  the  day 
to  fetch  water  from  the  fountain  in  the 
middle  of  the  village,  or  to  buy  what  I 
needed.  I  was  allowed  to  receive  no 
newspapers  or  magazines. 

"A  high  barbed  wire  fence,  guarded 
by  armed  natives,  surrounded  the  vil- 
lage, through  which  it  would  have  been 
death  to  try  to  escape.  All  day  the 
pom-poms  from  the  armored  trains  that 
paraded  on  the  railway  line  nine  miles 
distant  could  be  heard  at  intervals;  and 
at  night  there  was  the  talk  of  the  armed 
natives  as  they  pressed  against  the  win- 
dows, and  the  tramp  of  the  watch  with 
the  endless  "Who  goes  there?"  as  they 
walked  round  the  wire  fence  through 
the  long,  dark  hours  when  I  was  nei- 
ther allowed  to  light  a  candle  nor  strike 

[9] 


FOREWORD 


a  match.  When  a  conflict  was  fought 
near  by,  the  dying  and  wounded  were 
brought  in ;  three  men  belonging  to  our 
little  village  were  led  out  to  execution; 
death  sentences  were  read  in  our  little 
market-place;  our  prison  was  filled 
with  our  fellow-countrymen;  and  we 
did  not  know  from  hour  to  hour  what 
the  next  would  bring  to  us. 

"Under  these  conditions  I  felt  it  nec- 
essary I  should  resolutely  force  my 
thought  at  times  from  the  horror  of  the 
world  around  me,  to  dwell  on  some  ab- 
stract question,  and  it  was  under  these 
circumstances  that  this  little  book  was 
written,  being  a  remembrance  mainly 
drawn  from  one  chapter  of  the  larger 
book.  The  armed  native  guards  stand- 
ing against  the  windows,  it  was  impos- 
sible to  open  the  shutters,  and  the  room 

[10] 


FOREWORD 


was  therefore  so  dark  that  even  the 
physical  act  of  writing  was  difficult. 

"A  year  and  a  half  after,  when  the 
war  was  over  and  peace  had  been  pro- 
claimed for  about  four  months,  I  with 
difficulty  obtained  a  permit  to  visit  the 
Transvaal.  I  found  among  the  burnt 
fragments  the  leathern  back  of  my  book 
intact,  but  the  front  half  of  the  leaves 
had  been  completely  burnt  away;  the 
back  half  of  the  leaves  next  to  the  cover 
were  still  all  there,  but  so  browned  and 
scorched  with  the  flames  that  they  broke 
as  you  touched  them;  and  there  was 
nothing  left  but  to  destroy  it.  I  even 
then  had  a  hope  that  at  some  future 
time  I  might  yet  rewrite  the  whole 
book.  But  life  is  short;  and  I  have 
found  that  not  only  shall  I  never  re- 
write the  book,  but  I  shall  not  have  the 


FOREWORD 


health  even  to  fill  out  and  harmonize 
this  little  remembrance  from  it. 

"It  is  with  some  pain  that  I  give  out 
this  fragment.  I  am  only  comforted 
by  the  thought  that  perhaps  all  sincere 
and  earnest  search  after  truth,  even 
where  it  fails  to  reach  it,  yet  often 
comes  so  near  to  it  that  other  minds 
more  happily  situated  may  be  led,  by 
pointing  out  its  very  limitations,  to  ob- 
tain a  larger  view." 


[12] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 

I 

IT  may  be  said,  "Granting  fully  that 
you  are  right,  that,  as  woman's  old 
fields  of  labor  slip  from  her,  she  must 
grasp  new,  or  must  become  wholly  de- 
pendent on  her  sexual  function  alone, 
all  the  other  elements  of  human  nature 
in  her  becoming  atrophied  and  arrested 
through  lack  of  exercise,  and  granting 
that  her  evolution  being  arrested,  the 
evolution  of  the  whole  race  will  be  also 
arrested  in  her  person;  granting  all  this 
to  the  full,  and  allowing  that  the  bulk 
of  human  labor  tends  to  become  more 
and  more  intellectual  and  less  and  less 
purely  mechanical  as  perfected  ma- 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


chinery  takes  the  place  of  crude  human 
exertion;  and  that  therefore  if  woman 
is  to  be  saved  from  degeneration  and 
parasitism,  and  the  body  of  humanity 
from  arrest,  she  must  receive  a  training 
which  will  cultivate  all  the  intellectual 
and  all  the  physical  faculties  and  be 
allowed  freely  to  employ  them;  never- 
theless, would  it  not  be  possible,  and  be 
well,  that  a  dividing  line  of  some  kind 
should  be  drawn  between  the  occupa- 
tions of  men  and  of  women?  Would  it 
not  be  possible  that  woman  should  re- 
tain agriculture,  textile  manufactory, 
trade,  domestic  management,  the  edu- 
cation of  youth,  and  medicine,  in  addi- 
tion to  child-bearing,  as  her  exclusive 
fields  of  toil ;  while  to  the  male  should 
be  left  the  study  of  abstract  science, 
law  and  war,  and  statecraft;  as  of  old, 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


man  took  war  and  the  chase,  and  wom- 
an absorbed  the  further  labors  of  life? 
Why  should  there  not  be  again  a  fair 
and  even  division  in  the  field  of  social 
labor?" 

Superficially,  this  suggestion  appears 
rational,  having  at  least  this  to  recom- 
mend it,  that  it  appears  to  harmonize 
with  the  course  of  human  evolution  in 
the  past;  but  closely  examined,  it  will, 
we  think,  be  found  to  have  no  practical 
or  scientific  basis,  and  to  be  out  of  har- 
mony with  the  conditions  of  modern 
life.  In  ancient  and  primitive  societies, 
the  mere  larger  size  and  muscular 
strength  of  man  in  certain  mechanical 
directions,  and  woman's  incessant  phys- 
ical activity  in  child-bearing  and  suck- 
ling, made  almost  inevitable  such  a  sex- 
ual division  of  labor  in  almost  all  coun- 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


tries,  save  perhaps  in  ancient  Egypt.1 
Woman  naturally  took  the  heavy  agri- 
cultural and  domestic  labors,  which 
were  yet  more  consistent  with  the  con- 
tinual dependence  of  infant  life  on  her 
own,  than  those  of  man  in  war  and  the 
chase.  There  was  nothing  artificial  in 
such  a  division;  it  threw  the  heaviest 
burden  of  the  most  wearying  and  unex- 
citing forms  of  social  labor  on  woman, 
but  under  it  both  sexes  labored,  and 
each  transmitted  to  the  other,  through 
inheritance,  the  fruit  of  its  slowly  ex- 
panding and  always  exerted  powers; 
and  the  race  progressed. 

Individual  women  might  sometimes, 

1  The  division  of  labor  between  the  sexes  in 
ancient  Egypt  and  other  exceptional  countries  is 
a  matter  of  much  interest,  which  cannot  here  be 
entered  on. 

[16] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


and  even  often,  become  the  warriors  or 
chiefs  of  tribes;  the  King  of  Ashantee 
might  train  his  terrible  regiment  of  fe- 
males; and  men  might  now  and  again 
plant  and  weave  for  their  children :  but 
in  the  main,  and  in  most  societies,  the 
division  of  labor  was  just,natural,  bene- 
ficial, and  it  was  inevitable  that  such  a 
division  should  take  place.  Were  to- 
day a  band  of  civilized  men,  women, 
and  infants  thrown  down  absolutely 
naked  and  defenseless  in  some  desert, 
and  cut  off  hopelessly  from  all  external 
civilized  life,  undoubtedly  very  much 
the  old  division  of  labor  would,  at  least 
for  a  time,  reassert  itself.  Men  would 
look  about  for  stones  and  sticks  with 
which  to  make  weapons,  with  which  to 
repel  wild  beasts  and  enemies,  and 
would  go  a-hunting  meat  and  tend  the 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


beasts  when  tamed;1  women  would 
suckle  their  children,  cook  the  meat 
men  brought,  build  shelters,  look  for 
roots  and  if  possible  cultivate  them. 
There  certainly  would  be  no  parasite  in 
the  society.  The  woman  who  refused 
to  labor  for  her  offspring,  and  the  man 
who  refused  to  hunt  or  defend  society 
would  not  be  supported  by  their  fel- 
lows, would  soon  be  extinguished  by 
want.  As  wild  beasts  were  extin- 
guished and  others  tamed  and  the  ma- 
terials for  war  improved,  fewer  men 
would  be  needed  for  hunting  and  war; 
then  they  would  remain  at  home  and 
aid  in  building  and  planting;  many 
women  would  retire  into  the  house  to 
perfect  domestic  toil  and  handicrafts, 
and  on  a  small  scale  the  common  an- 

1  The  young  captured  animals  would  probably 
be  tamed  and  reared  by  the  women. 

[18] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


cient  evolution  of  society  would  prac- 
tically repeat  itself.  But  for  the  pres- 
ent we  see  no  such  natural  and  sponta- 
neous division  of  labor  based  on  natural 
sexual  distinctions  in  the  new  fields  of 
intellectual  or  delicately  skilled  man- 
ual labor,  which  are  taking  the  place 
of  the  old. 


II 

It  is  possible,  though  at  present  there 
is  nothing  to  give  indication  of  such  a 
fact,  and  it  seems  highly  improbable, 
that,  in  some  subtle  manner  now  incom- 
prehensible, there  might  tend  to  be  a 
subtle  correlation  between  that  condi- 
tion of  the  brain  and  nervous  system 
which  accompanies  ability  in  the  direc- 
tion of  certain  forms  of  mental,  social 
labor  and  the  particular  form  of  repro- 
ductive function  possessed  by  an  indi- 
vidual. It  may  be  that,  inexplicable 
as  it  seems,  there  may  ultimately  be 
found  to  be  some  connection  between 
that  condition  of  the  brain  and  nervous 
system  which  fits  the  individual  for  the 
study  of  the  higher  mathematics,  let  us 
[20] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


say,  and  the  nature  of  their  sex  attri- 
butes. The  mere  fact  that,  of  the  hand- 
ful of  women  who,  up  to  the  present, 
have  received  training  and  been  al- 
lowed to  devote  themselves  to  abstract 
study,  several  have  excelled  in  the 
higher  mathematics,  proves  of  neces- 
sity no  preeminent  tendency  on  the  part 
of  the  female  sex  in  the  direction  of 
mathematics,  as  compared  to  labor  in 
the  fields  of  statesmanship,  administra- 
tion, or  law,  as  into  these  fields  there 
has  been  practically  no  admittance  for 
women.  It  is  sometimes  stated,  that  as 
several  women  of  genius  in  modern 
times  have  sought  to  find  expression  for 
their  creative  powers  in  the  art  of  fic- 
tion, there  must  be  some  inherent  con- 
nection in  the  human  brain  between  the 
ovarian  sex  function  and  the  art  of  fic- 
tion. The  fact  is  that  modern  fiction, 

[21] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


being  merely  a  description  of  human 
life  in  any  of  its  phases,  and  being  the 
only  art  that  can  be  exercised  without 
special  training  or  special  appliances, 
and  produced  in  the  moments  stolen 
from  the  multifarious,  brain-destroying 
occupations  which  fill  the  average 
woman's  life,  they  have  been  driven  to 
find  this  outlet  for  their  powers  as  the 
only  one  presenting  itself.  How  far 
otherwise  might  have  been  the  direc- 
tions in  which  their  genius  would  nat- 
urally have  expressed  itself  can  be 
known  only  to  the  women  themselves; 
what  the  world  has  lost  by  that  compul- 
sory expression  of  genius,  in  a  form 
which  may  not  have  been  its  most  nat- 
ural form  of  expression,  or  only  one 
of  its  forms,  no  one  can  ever  know. 
Even  in  the  little  third-rate  novelist 
whose  works  cumber  the  ground,  we  see 

[22] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


often  a  pathetic  figure  when  we  recog- 
nize that  beneath  that  failure  in  a  com- 
plex and  difficult  art,  may  lie  buried  a 
sound  legislator,  an  able  architect,  an 
original  scientific  investigator,  or  a 
good  judge.  Scientifically  speaking,  it 
is  as  unproven  that  there  is  any  organic 
relation  between  the  brain  of  the  fe- 
male and  the  production  of  art  in  the 
form  of  fiction,  as  that  there  is  an  or- 
ganic relation  between  the  hand  of 
woman  and  the  typewriter.  Both  the 
creative  writer  and  the  typist,  in  their 
respective  spheres,  are  merely  finding 
outlets  for  their  powers  in  the  direc- 
tion of  least  mental  resistance.  The  ten- 
dency of  women  at  the  present  day  to 
undertake  certain  forms  of  labor  proves 
only  that  in  the  crabbed,  walled-in,  and 
bound  conditions  surrounding  woman 
at  the  present  day,  these  are  the  lines 
[23] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


along  which  action  is  most  possible  to 
her. 

It  may  possibly  be  that,  in  future 
ages,  when  the  male  and  female  forms 
have  been  placed  in  like  intellectual 
conditions,  with  like  stimuli,  like  train- 
ings and  like  rewards,  some  aptitudes 
may  be  found  running  parallel  with  the 
line  of  sex  function  when  humanity  is 
viewed  as  a  whole.  It  may  possibly  be 
that,  when  the  historian  of  the  future 
looks  back  over  the  history  of  the  intel- 
lectually freed  and  active  sexes  for 
many  generations,  a  decided  preference 
of  the  female  intellect  for  mathemat- 
ics, engineering,  or  statecraft  may  be 
made  clear;  and  that  a  like  marked  in- 
clination in  the  male  to  excel  in  acting, 
music,  or  astronomy  may  by  careful  and 
large  comparison  be  shown.  But  for 
the  present,  we  have  no  adequate  scien- 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


tific  data  from  which  to  draw  any  con- 
clusion, and  any  attempt  to  divide  the 
occupations  in  which  male  and  female 
intellects  and  wills  should  be  employed, 
must  be  to  attempt  a  purely  artificial 
and  arbitrary  division:  a  division  not 
more  rational  and  scientific  than  an  at- 
tempt to  determine  by  the  color  of  his 
eyes  and  the  shape  and  strength  of  his 
legs,  whether  a  lad  should  be  an  as- 
tronomer or  an  engraver. 


Ill 

Those  physical  differences  among 
mankind  which  divide  races  and  na- 
tions— not  merely  those  differences, 
enormously  greater  as  they  are  gener- 
ally, than  any  physical  differences  be- 
tween male  and  female  of  the  same  race, 
which  divide  the  Jew  and  the  Swede, 
the  Japanese  and  the  Englishman,  but 
even  those  subtle  physical  differences 
which  divide  closely  allied  races  such 
as  the  English  and  German — often  ap- 
pear to  be  allied  with  subtle  differences 
in  intellectual  aptitudes.  Yet  even  with 
regard  to  these  differences,  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  determine  scientifically 
in  how  far  they  are  the  result  of  na- 
tional traditions,  environment,  and  ed- 

[26] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


ucation,  and  in  how  far  they  run  paral- 
lel with  the  differences  in  physical  con- 
formation.1 

1  In  thinking  of  physical  sex  differences,  the 
civilized  man  of  modern  times  has  always  to 
guard  himself  against  being  unconsciously  misled 
by  the  very  exaggerated  external  sex  differences 
which  our  unnatural  method  of  sex  clothing  and 
dressing  the  hair  produces.  The  unclothed  and 
natural  human  male  and  female  bodies  are  not 
more  divided  from  each  other  than  those  of  the 
lion  and  lioness.  Our  remote  Saxon  ancestors, 
with  their  great  white  bodies  and  flowing  hair 
worn  long  by  both  sexes,  were  but  little  distin- 
guished from  each  other ;  while  among  their  mod- 
ern descendants  the  short-haired,  darkly  clothed, 
manifestly  two-legged  male  differs  absolutely 
from  the  usually  long-haired,  color  bedizened, 
much  skirted  female.  Were  the  structural  differ- 
ences between  male  and  female  really  one-half  as 
marked  as  the  artificial  visual  differences,  they 
would  be  greater  than  those  dividing,  not  merely 
any  species  of  man  from  each  other,  but  as  great 
as  those  which  divide  orders  in  the  animal  world. 
Only  a  mind  exceedingly  alert  and  analytical  can 
fail  ultimately  to  be  misled  by  habitual  visual  mis- 

[27] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


No  study  of  the  mere  physical  differ- 
ences between  individuals  of  different 
races  would  have  enabled  us  to  arrive 
at  any  knowledge  of  their  mental  apti- 
tude; nor  does  the  fact  that  certain  in- 
dividuals of  a  given  human  variety 
have  certain  aptitudes  form  a  rational 
ground  for  compelling  all  individuals 
of  that  variety  to  undertake  a  certain 
form  of  labor. 

No  analysis,  however  subtle,  of  the 
physical  conformation  of  the  Jew  could 
have  suggested  a  priori,  and  still  less 
could  have  proved,  apart  from  ages  of 
practical  experience,  that,  running  par- 
representation.  There  is  not,  probably,  one  man 
or  woman  in  twenty  thousand  who  is  not  power- 
fully influenced  in  modern  life  in  their  concep- 
tion of  the  differences,  physical  and  intellectual, 
dividing  the  human  male  and  female,  by  the  gro- 
tesque exaggerations  of  modern  attire  and  artifi- 
cial manners. 

[28] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


allel  with  any  physical  characteristics 
which  may  distinguish  him  from  his 
fellows,  was  an  innate  and  unique  in- 
tellectual gift  in  the  direction  of  re- 
ligion. The  fact  that,  during  three 
thousand  years,  from  Moses  to  Isaiah, 
through  Jesus  and  Paul,  on  to  Spinoza, 
the  Jewish  race  has  produced  men  who 
have  given  half  the  world  its  religious 
faith  and  impetus,  proves  that,  some- 
where and  somehow,  whether  con- 
nected organically  with  that  physical 
organization  that  marks  the  Jew,  or  as 
the  result  of  his  traditions  and  train- 
ing, there  does  go  this  gift  in  the  mat- 
ter of  religion.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  find  millions  of  Jews  who  are  to- 
tally and  markedly  deficient  in  it,  and 
to  base  any  practical  legislation  for  the 
individual  even  on  this  proven  intel- 
lectual aptitude  of  the  race  as  a  whole 
[29] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


would  be  manifestly  as  ridiculous  as 
abortive. 

Yet  more  markedly,  with  the  Ger- 
man— no  consideration  of  his  physical 
peculiarities,  though  it  proceeded  to 
the  subtlest  analysis  of  nerve,  bone,  and 
muscle,  could  in  the  present  stage  of 
our  knowledge  have  proved  to  us  what 
generations  of  experience  appear  to 
have  proved,  that,  with  that  organiza- 
tion which  constitutes  the  German,  goes 
a  unique  aptitude  for  music.  There  is 
always  the  possibility  of  mistaking  the 
result  of  training  and  external  circum- 
stance for  inherent  tendency,  but  when 
we  consider  the  passion  for  music 
which  the  German  has  shown,  and 
when  we  consider  that  the  greatest  mu- 
sicians the  world  has  seen,  from  Bach, 
Beethoven,  and  Mozart  to  Wagner, 
have  been  of  that  race,  it  appears  highly 
[30] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


probable  that  such  a  correlation  be- 
tween the  German  organization  and 
the  intellectual  gift  of  music  does  ex- 
ist. 

Similar  intellectual  peculiarities 
seem  to  be  connoted  by  the  external  dif- 
ferences which  mark  off  other  races 
from  each  other.  Nevertheless,  if  per- 
sons of  all  of  these  nationalities  gath- 
ered in  one  colony,  any  attempt  to  leg- 
islate for  their  restriction  to  certain 
forms  of  intellectual  labor  on  the 
ground  of  their  apparently  proved  na- 
tional aptitudes  or  disabilities,  would 
be  regarded  as  insane.  To  insist  that 
all  Jews,  and  none  but  Jews,  should 
lead  and  instruct  in  religious  matters; 
that  all  Englishmen,  and  none  but  Eng- 
lishmen, should  engage  in  trade;  that 
each  German  should  make  his  living  by 
music,  and  none  but  a  German  allowed 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


to  practice  it,  would  drive  to  despair 
the  unfortunate  individual  English- 
man, whose  most  marked  deficiency 
might  be  in  the  direction  of  finance  and 
bartering  trade  power;  the  Jew,  whose 
religious  instincts  might  be  entirely 
rudimentary;  or  the  German,  who 
could  not  distinguish  one  note  from  an- 
other;  and  the  society  as  a  whole  would 
be  an  irremediable  loser,  in  one  of  the 
heaviest  of  all  forms  of  social  loss — the 
loss  of  the  full  use  of  the  highest  capaci- 
ties of  all  its  members. 


[32] 


IV 

It  may  be  that  with  sexes  as  with 
races,  the  subtlest  physical  differences 
between  them  may  have  their  mental 
correlatives;  but  no  abstract  considera- 
tion of  the  human  body  in  relation  to 
its  functions  of  sex  can,  in  the  present 
state  of  our  knowledge,  show  us  what 
intellectual  capacities  tend  to  vary  with 
sexual  structure,  and  nothing  in  the 
present  or  past  condition  of  male  or 
female  gives  us  more  than  the  very 
faintest  possible  indication  of  the  rela- 
tion of  their  intellectual  aptitudes  and 
their  sexual  functions.  And  even  if 
it  were  proved  by  centuries  of  experi- 
ment that  with  the  possession  of  the 
uterine  function  of  sex  tends  to  go  ex- 

[33] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


ceptional  intellectual  capacity  in  the 
direction  of  mathematics  rather  than 
natural  history,  or  an  inclination  for 
statecraft  rather  than  for  mechanical 
invention;  were  it  proved  that,  gener- 
ally speaking  and  as  a  whole,  out  of 
twenty  thousand  women  devoting 
themselves  to  law  and  twenty  thousand 
to  medicine,  they  tended  to  achieve  rel- 
atively more  in  the  field  of  law  than  of 
medicine,  there  would  yet  be  no  possi- 
ble healthy  or  rational  ground  for  re- 
stricting the  activities  of  the  individual 
female  to  that  line  in  which  the  average 
female  appeared  rather  more  fre- 
quently to  excel.1 

1  Minds  not  keenly  analytical  are  always  apt 
to  mistake  mere  correlation  of  appearance  with 
causative  sequence.  We  have  heard  it  gravely 
asserted  that  between  potatoes,  pigs,  mud  cabins, 
and  Irishmen  there  was  an  organic  connection; 
but  we  who  have  lived  in  Colonies  know  that 

[34] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


That  even  one  individual  in  a  so- 
ciety should  be  debarred  from  under- 
taking that  form  of  social  toil  for  which 
it  is  most  fitted,  makes  an  unnecessary 
deficit  in  the  general  social  assets.  That 
one  male  Froebel  should  be  prohibited 
or  hampered  in  his  labor  as  an  educator 
of  infancy,  on  the  ground  that  infantile 
instruction  was  the  field  of  the  female; 
that  one  female  with  gifts  in  the  direc- 
tion of  state  administration,  should  be 
compelled  to  instruct  an  infants'  school, 
perhaps  without  any  gift  for  so  doing, 
is  a  running  to  waste  of  social  life- 
blood. 

Free  trade  in  labor  and  equality  of 

within  two  generations  the  pure-bred  descen- 
dant of  the  mud  cabin  becomes  often  the  suc- 
cessful politician,  wealthy  financier,  or  great 
judge;  and  shows  no  more  predilection  for  po- 
tatoes, pigs,  and  mud  cabins  than  men  of  any 
other  race. 

[35] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


training,  intellectual  or  physical,  is  es- 
sential if  the  organic  aptitudes  of  a  sex 
or  class  are  to  be  determined.  And  our 
demand  to-day  is  that  natural  condi- 
tions, inexorably,  but  beneficently,  may 
determine  the  labors  of  each  individual, 
and  not  artificial  restrictions. 


[36] 


As  there  is  no  need  to  legislate  that 
Hindus,  being  generally  supposed  to 
have  a  natural  incapacity  for  field 
sports,  shall  not  betake  themselves  to 
them — for,  if  they  have  no  capacity, 
they  will  fail;  and,  as  in  spite  of  the 
Hindus'  supposed  general  incapacity 
for  sport,  it  is  possible  for  an  individual 
Hindu  to  become  the  noted  batsman  of 
his  age;  so,  there  is  no  need  to  legislate 
that  woman  should  be  restricted  in  her 
choice  of  fields  of  labor;  for  the  or- 
ganic incapacity  of  the  individual,  if  it 
exist,  will  legislate  far  more  strongly 
than  any  artificial,  legal,  or  social  ob- 
struction can  do ;  and  it  may  be  that  the 
one  individual  in  ten  thousand  who  se- 

[37] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


lects  a  field  not  generally  sought  by 
his  fellows  will  enrich  humanity  by 
the  result  of  an  especial  genius.  Allow- 
ing all  to  start  from  the  one  point  in 
the  world  of  intellectual  culture  and 
labor,  with  our  ancient  Mother  Nature 
sitting  as  umpire,  distributing  the 
prizes  and  scratching  from  the  lists  the 
incompetent,  is  all  we  demand,  but  we 
demand  it  determinedly.  Throw  the 
puppy  into  the  water :  if  it  swims,  well ; 
if  it  sinks,  well ;  but  do  not  tie  a  rope 
round  its  throat  and  weight  it  with  a 
brick,  and  then  assert  its  incapacity  to 
keep  afloat. 

For  the  present,  <we  take  all  labor  for 
our  province! 

From  the  judge's  seat  to  the  legisla- 
tor's chair;  from  the  statesman's  closet 
to  the  merchant's  office;  from  the  chem- 
ist's laboratory  to  the  astronomer's 

[38] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


tower,  there  is  no  post  or  form  of  toil 
for  which  it  is  not  our  intention  to  at- 
tempt to  fit  ourselves;  and  there  is  no 
closed  door  we  do  not  intend  to  force 
open ;  and  there  is  no  fruit  in  the  gar- 
den of  knowledge  it  is  not  our  determi- 
nation to  eat.  Acting  in  us,  and 
through  us,  nature  will  mercilessly  ex- 
pose to  us  our  deficiencies  in  the  field 
of  human  toil  and  reveal  to  us  our  pow- 
ers. And,  for  to-day,  we  take  all  labor 
for  our  province! 


[39] 


VI 

But,  it  may  be  said :  "What  then  of 
war,  that  struggle  of  the  human  crea- 
ture to  attain  its  ends  by  physical  force 
and  at  the  price  of  the  life  of  others: 
will  you  take  part  in  that  also?"  We 
reply:  Yes;  more  particularly  in  that 
field  we  intend  to  play  our  part.  We 
have  always  borne  part  of  the  weight 
of  war,  and  the  major  part.  It  is  not 
that  in  primitive  times  we  suffered 
from  the  destruction  of  the  fields  we 
tilled  and  the  houses  we  built;  it  is  not 
that  later  as  domestic  laborers  and  pro- 
ducers, though  unwaged,  we,  in  taxes 
and  material  loss  and  additional  labor, 
paid  as  much  as  our  male  towards  the 
cost  of  war;  it  is  not  that  in  a  com- 

[40] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


paratively  insignificant  manner,  as 
nurses  of  the  wounded  in  modern  times, 
or  now  and  again  as  warrior  chieftain- 
esses  and  leaders  in  primitive  and  other 
societies,  we  have  borne  our  part;  nor 
is  it  even  because  the  spirit  of  resolution 
in  its  women,  and  their  willingness  to 
endure,  has  in  all  ages,  again  and  again 
largely  determined  the  fate  of  a  race 
that  goes  to  war,  that  we  demand  our 
controlling  right  where  war  is  con- 
cerned. Our  relation  to  war  is  far  more 
intimate,  personal,  and  indissoluble 
than  this.  Men  have  made  boom- 
erangs, bows,  swords,  or  guns  with 
which  to  destroy  one  another;  we  have 
made  the  men  who  destroyed  and  were 
destroyed!  We  have  in  all  ages  pro- 
duced, at  an  enormous  cost,  the  primal 
munition  of  war,  without  which  no 
other  would  exist.  There  is  no  battle- 

[41] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


field  on  earth,  nor  ever  has  been,  how- 
soever covered  with  slain,  which  it  has 
not  cost  the  women  of  the  race  more 
in  actual  bloodshed  and  anguish  to  sup- 
ply, than  it  has  cost  the  men  who  lie 
there.  We  pay  the  first  cost  on  all  hu- 
man life. 

In  supplying  the  men  for  the  car- 
nage of  a  battlefield,  women  have  not 
merely  lost  actually  more  blood,  and 
gone  through  a  more  acute  anguish  and 
weariness,  in  the  long  months  of  bear- 
ing and  in  the  final  agony  of  child- 
birth, than  has  been  experienced  by  the 
men  who  cover  it;  but,  in  the  long 
months  of  rearing  that  follow,  the 
women  of  the  race  go  through  a  long, 
patiently  endured  strain  which  no 
knapsacked  soldier  on  his  longest 
march  has  ever  more  than  equaled; 
while,  even  in  the  matter  of  death,  in 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


all  civilized  societies,  the  probability 
that  the  average  woman  will  die  in 
child-birth  is  immeasurably  greater 
than  the  probability  that  the  average 
male  will  die  in  battle. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  woman, 
whether  she  have  borne  children,  or  be 
merely  potentially  a  child-bearer,  who 
could  look  down  upon  a  battlefield 
covered  with  slain,  but  the  thought 
would  rise  in  her,  "So  many  mothers' 
sons!  So  many  young  bodies  brought 
into  the  world  to  lie  there!  So  many 
months  of  weariness  and  pain  while 
bones  and  muscles  were  shaped  within! 
So  many  hours  of  anguish  and  struggle 
that  breath  might  be!  So  many  baby 
mouths  drawing  life  at  women's 
breasts; — all  this,  that  men  might  lie 
with  glazed  eyeballs,  and  swollen  faces, 
and  fixed,  blue,  unclosed  mouths,  and 

[43] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


great  limbs  tossed — this,  that  an  acre 
of  ground  might  be  manured  with  hu- 
man flesh,  that  next  year's  grass  or  pop- 
pies or  karoo  bushes  may  spring  up 
greener  and  redder,  where  they  have 
lain,  or  that  the  sand  of  a  plain  may 
have  a  glint  of  white  bones!"  And  we 
cry,  "Without  an  inexorable  cause,  this 
must  not  be!"  No  woman  who  is  a 
woman  says  of  a  human  body,  "It  is 
nothing!" 


[44] 


VII 

On  that  day  when  the  woman  takes 
her  place  beside  the  man  in  the  gov- 
ernance and  arrangement  of  external 
affairs  of  her  race  will  also  be  that 
day  that  heralds  the  death  of  war  as 
a  means  of  arranging  human  differ- 
ences. No  tinsel  of  trumpets  and  flags 
will  ultimately  seduce  women  into  the 
insanity  of  recklessly  destroying  life, 
or  gild  the  willful  taking  of  life  with 
any  other  name  than  that  of  murder, 
whether  it  be  the  slaughter  of  the  mil- 
lion or  of  one  by  one.  And  this  will 
be,  not  because  with  the  sexual  func- 
tion of  maternity  necessarily  goes  in  the 
human  creature  a  deeper  moral  insight, 
or  a  loftier  type  of  social  instinct  than 

[45] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


that  which  accompanies  the  paternal. 
Men  have  in  all  ages  led  as  nobly  as 
women  in  many  paths  of  heroic  virtue, 
and  toward  the  higher  social  sympa- 
thies; in  certain  ages,  being  freer  and 
more  widely  cultured,  they  have  led 
further  and  better.  The  fact  that 
woman  has  no  inherent  all-round  moral 
superiority  over  her  male  companion, 
or  naturally  on  all  points  any  higher 
social  instinct,  is  perhaps  most  clearly 
exemplified  by  one  curious  very  small 
fact:  the  two  terms  signifying  intimate 
human  relationships,  which  in  almost 
all  human  languages  bear  the  most  sin- 
ister and  antisocial  significance  are  both 
terms  which  have  as  their  root  the  term 
"mother,"  and  denote  feminine  rela- 
tionships— the  words  "mother-in-law" 
and  "step-mother." 

In  general  humanity,  in  the  sense  of 

[46] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


social  solidarity,  and  in  magnanimity, 
the  male  has  continually  proved  him- 
self at  least  the  equal  of  the  female. 

Nor  will  women  shrink  from  war  be- 
cause they  lack  courage.  Earth's  wom- 
en of  every  generation  have  faced  suf- 
fering and  death  with  an  equanimity 
that  no  soldier  on  a  battlefield  has  ever 
surpassed  and  few  have  equaled;  and 
where  war  has  been  to  preserve  life,  or 
land,  or  freedom,  rather  than  for  ag- 
grandizement and  power,  unparasitized 
and  laboring  women  have  in  all  ages 
known  how  to  bear  an  active  part,  and 
die. 

Nor  will  woman's  influence  militate 
against  war  because  in  the  future  wom- 
an will  not  be  able  physically  to  bear 
her  part  in  it.  The  smaller  size  of  her 
muscle,  which  might  severely  have  dis- 
advantaged  her  when  war  was  con- 

[47] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


ducted  with  a  battle-axe  or  sword  and 
hand  to  hand,  would  now  little  or  not 
at  all  affect  her.  If  intent  on  training 
for  war,  she  might  acquire  the  skill  for 
guiding  a  Maxim  or  shooting  down  a 
foe  with  a  Lee-Metford  at  four  thou- 
sand yards  as  ably  as  any  male;  and 
undoubtedly,  it  has  not  been  only  the 
peasant  girl  of  France,  who  has  carried 
latent  and  hid  in  her  person  the  gifts 
that  would  make  the  great  general.  If 
our  European  nations  should  continue 
in  their  present  semi-civilized  condi- 
tion a  few  generations  longer,  it  is 
highly  probable  that  as  financiers,  as 
managers  of  the  commissariat  depart- 
ment, as  inspectors  of  provisions  and 
clothing  for  the  army,  women  may 
probably  play  a  very  leading  part;  and 
that  the  nation  which  is  the  first  to  em- 
ploy women  may  be  placed  at  a  vast  ad- 
[48] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


vantage  over  its  fellows  in  time  of  war. 
It  is  not  because  of  woman's  cowardice, 
incapacity,  nor,  above  all,  because  of 
her  general  superior  virtue,  that  she 
will  end  war  when  her  voice  is  fully 
and  clearly  heard  in  the  governance  of 
states — it  is  because,  on  this  one  point, 
and  on  this  point  almost  alone,  the 
knowledge  of  woman,  simply  as  wom- 
an, is  superior  to  that  of  man;  she 
knows  the  history  of  human  flesh ;  she 
knows  its  cost;  he  does  not.1 

1  It  is  noteworthy  that  even  Catherine  of  Rus- 
sia, a  ruler  and  statesman  of  a  virile  and  uncom- 
promising type,  and  not  usually  troubled  with 
moral  scruples,  yet  refused  with  indignation  the 
offer  of  Frederick  of  Prussia  to  pay  her  heavily 
for  a  small  number  of  Russian  recruits  in  an  age 
when  the  hiring  out  of  soldiers  was  common 
among  the  sovereigns  of  Europe. 


[49] 


VIII 

In  a  besieged  city,  it  might  well  hap- 
pen that  men  in  the  streets  might  seize 
upon  statues  and  marble  carvings  from 
public  buildings  and  galleries  and  hurl 
them  in  to  stop  the  breaches  made  in 
their  ramparts  by  the  enemy,  unconsid- 
eringly  and  merely  because  they  came 
first  to  hand,  not  valuing  them  more 
than  had  they  been  paving-stones.  One 
man,  however,  could  not  do  this — the 
sculptor.    He,  who,  though  there  might 
be  no  work  of  his  own  chisel  among 
them,   yet  knew  what  each   of   these 
works  of  art  had  cost,  knew  by  experi- 
ence the  long  years  of  struggle  and 
study  and  the  infinitude  of  toil  which 
had  gone  to  the  shaping  of  even  one 
[50] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


limb,  to  the  carving  of  even  one  per- 
fected outline,  he  could  never  so  use 
them  without  thought  or  care.  Instinc- 
tively he  would  seek  to  throw  in  house- 
hold goods,  even  gold  and  silver,  all  the 
city  held,  before  he  sacrificed  its  works 
of  art! 

Men's  bodies  are  our  woman's  works 
of  art.  Given  to  us  power  to  control, 
we  will  never  carelessly  throw  them  in 
to  fill  up  the  gaps  in  human  relation- 
ships made  by  international  ambitions 
and  greeds.  The  thought  would  never 
come  to  us  as  women,  "Cast  in  men's 
bodies;  settle  the  thing  so!"  Arbitra- 
tion and  compensation  would  as  natu- 
rally occur  to  us  as  cheaper  and  sim- 
pler methods  of  bridging  the  gaps  in 
national  relationships,  as  to  the  sculp- 
tor it  would  occur  to  throw  in  anything 
[5'] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


rather  than  statuary,  though  he  might 
be  driven  to  that  at  last! 

This  is  one  of  those  phases  of  human 
life,  not  very  numerous,  but  very  im- 
portant, toward  which  the  man  as  man, 
and  the  woman  as  woman,  on  the  mere 
ground  of  their  different  sexual  func- 
tion with  regard  to  reproduction,  stand, 
and  must  stand,  at  a  somewhat  differ- 
ing angle.  The  physical  creation  of  hu- 
man life,  which,  in  as  far  as  the  male  is 
concerned,  consists  in  a  few  moments  of 
physical  pleasure,  to  the  female  must 
always  signify  months  of  pressure  and 
physical  endurance,  crowned  with  dan- 
ger to  life.  To  the  male,  the  giving  of 
life  is  a  laugh;  to  the  female,  blood, 
anguish,  and  sometimes  death.  Here 
we  touch  one  of  the  few  yet  important 
differences  between  man  and  woman 
as  such. 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


The  twenty  thousand  men  prema- 
turely slain  on  a  field  of  battle,  mean,  to 
the  women  of  their  race,  twenty  thou- 
sand human  creatures  to  be  borne  with- 
in them  for  months,  given  birth  to  in 
anguish,  fed  from  their  breasts  and 
reared  with  toil,  if  the  numbers  of  the 
tribe  and  the  strength  of  the  nation  are 
to  be  maintained.  In  nations  continu- 
ally at  war,  incessant  and  unbroken 
child-bearing  is  by  war  imposed  on  all 
women  if  the  state  is  to  survive;  and 
whenever  war  occurs,  if  numbers  are 
to  be  maintained,  there  must  be  an  in- 
creased child-bearing  and  rearing. 
This  throws  upon  woman  as  woman  a 
war  tax,  compared  with  which  all  that 
the  male  expends  in  military  prepara- 
tions is  comparatively  light. 

The  relations  of  the  female  toward 
the  production  of  human  life  influence 

[53] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


undoubtedly  even  her  relation  toward 
animal  and  all  life.  "It  is  a  fine  day, 
let  us  go  out  and  kill  something  1"  cries 
the  typical  male  of  certain  races,  in- 
stinctively; "There  is  a  living  thing, 
it  will  die  if  it  is  not  cared  for,"  says 
the  average  woman,  almost  equally  in- 
stinctively. It  is  true  that  the  woman 
will  sacrifice  as  mercilessly,  as  cruelly, 
the  life  of  a  hated  rival  or  an  enemy,  as 
any  male;  but  she  always  knows  what 
she  is  doing,  and  the  value  of  the  life 
she  takes!  There  is  no  light-hearted, 
careless  enjoyment  in  the  sacrifice  of 
life  to  the  normal  woman ;  her  instinct, 
instructed  by  experience,  steps  in  to 
prevent  it.  She  always  knows  what  life 
costs ;  and  that  it  is  more  easy  to  destroy 
than  create  it. 


[54] 


IX 

It  is  also  true,  that,  from  the  loftiest 
standpoint,  the  condemnation  of  war 
which  has  arisen  in  the  human  spirit, 
is  in  no  sense  related  to  any  particular 
form  of  sex  function.  The  man  and 
the  woman  alike,  who  with  Isaiah  on 
the  hills  of  Palestine,  or  the  Indian 
Buddha  under  his  bo-tree,  have  seen 
the  essential  unity  of  all  sentient  life; 
and  who  therefore  see  in  war  but  a 
symptom  of  that  crude  discoordina- 
tion  of  life  on  earth,  not  yet  at  one  with 
itself,  which  affects  humanity  in  these 
early  stages  of  its  growth ;  and  who  are 
compelled  to  regard  as  the  ultimate  goal 
of  the  race,  though  yet  perhaps  far  dis- 
tant across  the  ridges  of  innumerable 

[55] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


coming  ages,  that  harmony  between  all 
forms  of  conscious  life,  metaphorically 
prefigured  by  the  ancient  Hebrew, 
when  he  cried,  "The  wolf  shall  dwell 
with  the  lamb ;  and  the  leopard  shall  lie 
down  with  the  kid;  and  the  calf  and 
the  young  lion  and  the  fading  together, 
and  a  little  child  shall  lead  them!" — 
to  the  individual,  whether  man  or 
woman,  who  has  reached  this  stand- 
point, there  is  no  need  for  enlighten- 
ment from  the  instincts  of  the  child- 
bearers  of  society  as  such;  their  con- 
demnation of  war,  rising  not  so  much 
from  the  fact  that  it  is  a  wasteful  de- 
struction of  human  flesh,  as  that  it  is 
an  indication  of  the  non-existence  of 
that  coordination,  the  harmony  which 
is  summed  up  in  the  cry,  "My  little 
children,  love  one  another." 

But  for  the  vast  bulk  of  humanity, 

[56] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


probably  for  generations  to  come,  the 
instinctive  antagonism  of  the  human 
child-bearer  to  reckless  destruction  of 
that  which  she  has  at  so  much  cost  pro- 
duced will  probably  be  necessary  to 
educate  the  race  to  any  clear  conception 
of  the  bestiality  and  insanity  of  war. 


[57] 


War  will  pass  when  intellectual  cul- 
ture and  activity  have  made  possible  to 
the  female  an  equal  share  in  the  control 
and  governance  of  modern  national 
life;  it  will  probably  not  pass  away 
much  sooner;  its  extinction  will  not  be 
delayed  much  longer. 

It  is  especially  in  the  domain  of  war 
that  we,  the  bearers  of  men's  bodies, 
who  supply  its  most  valuable  munition, 
who,  not  amid  the  clamor  and  ardor  of 
battle,  but  singly,  and  alone,  with  a 
three-in-the-morning  courage,  shed  our 
blood  and  face  death  that  the  battlefield 
might  have  its  food,  a  food  more  pre- 
cious to  us  than  our  heart's  blood;  it  is 
we  especially  who,  in  the  domain  of 

[58] 


WOMAN  AND  WAR 


war,  have  our  word  to  say,  a  word  no 
man  can  say  for  us.  It  is  our  intention 
to  enter  into  the  domain  of  war  and  to 
labor  there  till  in  the  course  of  gen- 
erations we  have  extinguished  it. 

If  to-day  we  claim  all  labor  for  our 
province,  yet  more  especially  do  we 
claim  those  fields  in  which  the  differ- 
ence in  the  reproductive  function  be- 
tween man  and  woman  may  place  male 
and  female  at  a  slightly  different  angle 
with  regard  to  certain  facts  of  human 
life. 


THE  END 


[59] 


X 


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